In financial and commercial transaction systems today, there is a need to positively verify the status of a person who requests goods and services from a system at an unattended site or from someone to whom he is not known. The same is true of one who seeks access to a restricted site. Such systems are commonly used in connection with retail purchases using credit or debit cards, employee access control at restricted areas, and student identification cards at libraries and campus events, among others.
Some existing identification systems use a secret code, often referred to as a personal identification number (PIN). Other systems rely upon one's likeness to a photograph, or the possession of an instrument such as a key or an encoded card in an effort to confirm an individual's identity. Such a system is offered by Identicator Technology of San Bruno Calif. In this system, the verification process compares the holder's unique fingerprint features that are stored on the magnetic stripe of a card or smart card with the cardholder's live finger image. The fingerprint scanning is performed by the holder placing his finger on a peripheral device that authenticates the owner of the card and links the card to the cardholder. Thus, the scanning is performed apart from the data on the card.
Still other methods, including the evaluation of a signature, the matching of finger prints, sensing the likeness of a voice, the geometry of a hand, and other means, may use these or a combination of methods. Unfortunately, such systems often rely upon the skill and attention of busy sales or other service people, and there is often no way to detect if an instrument has been stolen or otherwise not in the possession of one who is authorized to hold the instrument. In other words, the possession of such an instrument does not confirm an individual's identity, or verify that the holder of an instrument is authorized to do so.
The most commonly used identification methods in use today for credit and debit cards is either the PIN system or comparison with a simple, hand-written signature in a space provided on the card. Such means have proved satisfactory in the vast majority of transactions, because most people are in fact honest. However, for the unscrupulous, the security provided by such means has proved to be inadequate. Thus, there remains a need for a means to positively verify the status of an individual at a point of sale for goods or services, or at an unattended site, such as at an automated teller machine and the like.